Sailors can be an odd group of people. We occupy a strange existence. Our careers can be sordid and shaky. We are either strangely single or weirdly married. Some have backgrounds and pasts that are as murky as brackish water.
In most marinas, you will find a shipwrecked sailor or marooned man whose grand plans are so close to execution. You hear them saying, “I’m waiting for,” or “as soon as I fix.” Then one day you notice their boat missing and you never quite know if they died, went to jail, or fulfilled their plans.
And being a sailor myself, I plead guilty to this particular resume quality. I’ve had Caribbean dreams and came up short. You never quite know what cancelled the plan, nor do you feel the pain of failure.
But for the past 5 years, I’ve had no intentions of ever leaving Destin. I live on the harbor in a quaint little 2-bedroom cottage. While reeking of age and not as elegant as a condo, it was the perfect fit. I believed from the moment I moved in that someday I would buy it.
Then this spring, I took a shot in the dark aimed at the owner of the property. It was a simple correspondence and the subject matter was clear. It was my destiny to become the next owner of the property. His response was irrefutably clear, “It sounds like you are trying to make a home for yourself. Yes, I am interested in selling.”
But when it came time to actually step up to the plate, reality came crashing down like a hull on an uncharted shoal. Was I ready to throw anchor in Destin? Most importantly: Was Destin my final port of exploration?
Throughout summer, I endeavored on a season of discovery involving Destin. Was the traffic and swarm of tourists too much to enjoy? Would I become a career beach bum? The quality of life? The beaches? Crab Island? The weather? Property taxes? These questions weighed on me daily. I gathered and interpreted the evidence like a grand jury.
I explored other cities to open the possibility of heavenly intervention. I flew to Washington, D.C. and ran into Senator Rand Paul, who had once been a guest at the property and on my boat. I offered my knowledge to eliminate Yemeni pirates, should he someday become president. It turns out, there’s no current position in the government even resembling this job.
Then the answer came last Sunday afternoon.
As I sat in the Harbor House, I heard a freight train coming down the harbor. By the time I pulled back the blinds, I could see a wall of water rolling down the harbor – full steam ahead.
When it barreled down across my ship, she instantly snapped open the front sail exposing the entire cloth to the hurricane force winds of a waterspout that appeared out of nowhere.
By the time I reached the boat, the sail had been shredded and ruined. The anchor lines had all snapped or their cleats. The Emerald Lady galloped forward and drove her hull through the pilings. The incredible wind was relentless driving the boat aground in shallow water. With the sails catching wind and the anchor lines released, she was technically a ship under way – but without a captain.
I jumped into the turbid water – already full of debris from nearby docks. I felt like I was filming a scene from a Universal Studio’s film entitled, “Hurricane.” I stared up at the catastrophic loss of my sail, then pulled my body up into the pulpit and released the jib halyard, watching its ragged seams drop into the water. I reattached dock lines to lasso the wild beast. I never even realized the light pole had come smashing down, exposing live wires.
For the next several hours, I surveyed the damage, counted up the thousands in damage in sails and paint job. But what struck me most was the fire inside the belly of my boat. She had so much power stored up — so much nautical testosterone. I had kept her caged for so long, and she told me it was time to let loose.
So, the jury had returned its verdict. When I tried the plan on, the regrettable feelings of having outgrown the entire show overwhelmed me. It was time to fly, for my ship told me so.
Perhaps it’s the sailor blood that streams through my veins. We have a sea sickness of sorts – never can keep us in one spot. Always wanting to find a new land and meet new people and to do so, we must move our entire lives. And to do that, we must convince ourselves that the water will be greener on the other side of the ocean. So as I write, I am prepping the ship for departure.
And of course, I am held up at the dock waiting for a replacement sail from a guy in Alabama who never answers his phone or reads his Facebook messages.